The Net Generation as Preservice Teachers was written by Swapna Kumar and Katya Vigil for the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education magazine in 2011. They are looking into the teacher education and educational policy issues that are preparing the "digital natives" or "Net generation" for the 21st century classroom. The researchers begin by stating that ISTE has prepared state standards for teachers and students in order to help the learning experience through classroom citizenship and assessments. Not only are students entering school with a lot of digital experiences, but college students entering education are also familiar with technology and comfortable with it. Therefore, if technology is "taught to make the connection between the technology, subject matter, and pedagogy, they will quickly become adept at implementing educational technology activities in the classroom".
Kumar and Vigil sent out a survey to preservice teachers regarding their prior use of computer learning and their experiences with technology during their teacher education. Some interesting results came out during the survey. When asked about using Web 2.0 tools for informal use and informal creation, there was a big difference. Surveys showed that many did use the tools of blogs, wikis, or podcasts for informal use, but not for informal creation. 100% of the surveyors never made a podcast informally or for a class. When compared to educational use and educational creation, again, there was a large difference. Online videos was the Web 2.0 tool that was used the most for education and blogs the lowest.
The final statements by the researchers after evaluating the data they felt that "preservice teachers have to be able to critically evaluate Web-based content, create digital content, and make connections to real-world technologies or resources for their future students". They urge teacher educators to find ways to encourage preservice teachers to integrate and implement technology into their lessons.
My Reflection:
I completely agree with what the researchers found in their survey. I do not fall into the Net generation (people born after 1984), but I know the importance of using technology and implementing it into lessons daily. I wish my district had more computers in each classroom in order to allow students to do paper-free lessons, but the exposure is good with what we have to work with. Our county has put $600,000 into model classrooms, that's mounted projectors, document cameras, and surround sound. I found out the other day that one teacher hasn't even tried to use hers, how do I know? She hasn't turned it on to find out it's not hooked up. Her students are not receiving any digital experiences in her class because she is older and is not sure of how to integrate it into lessons on a daily or weekly basis.
Newer teachers will probably use the equipment more readily if they are taught during their college courses how to implement it and use Web 2.0 tools regularly.
